Tech In My Placement

This class has introduced me to a multitude of ways that technology can be used in the classroom.  As a result, I am considering trying things in my future teaching practice that I never thought I would before taking this class.  It's very exciting (and a bit scary) to think about how I will integrate technology into my classroom and, more importantly, how I will manage it.  There is one thing, however, that keeps coming up in our discussions about different technological tools and our ideas for using them in the classroom, and that is the issue of access.

After completing the "tech in my placement" survey toward the beginning of the semester, I had the opportunity to talk to a few of my fellow math majors about what they had found in their respective schools.  It should not have come as a surprise that the results of the survey varied quite a bit from school to school, but I think that people sometimes forget that there will always be the "haves" and the "have nots" (and everything in between) when it comes to expensive school resources like technology.  Fortunately, for the students at my field placement, access does not appear to be an issue.

The high school that I am placed at has a wonderful selection of technological resources for its students and teachers.  In the large media center, students have access before, during, and after school to computers that are equipped with software for video editing, sound editing, image editing, web page authoring, and productivity tools.  The internet access is unrestricted, but every teacher and student signs an agreement for appropriate use and faces consequences if they do not adhere to it.

Every individual classroom is equipped with a projector, and laptop carts are available by reservation.  One complaint that I have heard regarding the laptop cart and any other technology that is available by reservation (e.g., digital cameras) is that the protocol is not always followed for using these shared resources.  Some teachers will use them without properly reserving them, which could interfere with another teacher's reservation, and some teachers will keep the resources for longer than they are supposed to.  In the grand scheme of things, this seems like a small price to pay for all of the resources that are available to students and teachers.

One final thing to note is that the school uses Power School, which allows parents, students, and teachers access to certain levels of information about student grades, attendance, and other important information (e.g., birthdays and health issues).  The fact that parents and students can keep tabs on grades throughout the semester and report any concerns long before report cards go out seems to allow for a smoother process.  All in all, I think that the students and teachers at my placement are pretty lucky in the realm of technology.  I would like to see more technology use in my mentor teacher's classroom to get a more concrete idea of how a math classroom can be transformed with the use of some of the resources described above.